European security officials on Monday and Tuesday observed Russian Navy support ships in the vicinity of leaks in the Nord Stream pipelines likely caused by underwater explosions, according to two Western intelligence officials and one other source.
It’s unclear whether the ships had anything to do with those explosions, these sources and others said – but it’s one of the many factors that investigators will be looking into. Russian submarines were also observed not far from those areas last week, one of the intelligence officials said. Three US officials said that the US has no thorough explanation yet for what happened, days after the explosions appeared to cause three separate and simultaneous leaks in the two pipelines on Monday.
“The only thing I know there is that we think the water is between 80 and 100 meters [deep] at that location where the pipeline is. Other than that, I don’t know anything more.” But one senior US official and a US military official both said Russia is still the leading suspect – assuming that the European assessment of deliberate sabotage is borne out – because there are no other plausible suspects with the ability and will to carry out the operation.